<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Extending the Family by ModernWizard</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29881935">Extending the Family</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard'>ModernWizard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alison Wonderland [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ah true wuvs, Alison recites Invictus, Alison's dad, Alison's formidable great aunt Florrie, Alison's mum, And the Domina is still looking out for her Magister, But the Magister is still watching out for his Domina, Consensual Kink, Family Reunion, Florrie is a badass steelworker, Gen, Kinky Alison, Kinky Doctor, Kinky Master, No kink in public, Other, Please remember your name Doctor!, The Doctor doesn't, The Doctor explodes a canteloupe with their voice, The Master found a way to get out of the TARDIS, The Master rolls his eyes, council housing in Sheffield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:13:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,014</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29881935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alison Cheney drags her two Time Dorks, the Doctor and the Master, to her great aunt's ninetieth birthday party/family reunion. What will her formidable relative say about Alison's recent adventures with alien antagonists and other planets? What will she say about Alison's weird new friends? 1000 words of mild, unfounded angst with a happy ending. Originally appeared in the Painting It Black zine.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alison Cheney &amp; Ninth Doctor (Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka), Alison Cheney &amp; The Doctor (Doctor Who), Alison Cheney &amp; The Master (Doctor Who), Alison Cheney &amp; The Master (Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alison Wonderland [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/710001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Extending the Family</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Beyond this place of wrath and tears / Looms the horror of the Shade—” Alison, traveling with her parents and Time Lords Dorks, the Magister and the Doctor, recites Invictus for fortitude. Even after defeating the Shalka two years ago, she still considers her great-great aunt’s ninetieth birthday party scarier.</p><p>“Florrie’s not a horror.” Alison’s dad aims the minivan toward Callow Mount. </p><p>“She’s a badass steelworker,” Alison counters. “Just a bit intimidating.” </p><p>“Nothing scary about family.”</p><p>“Yeah, right.” Alison doesn’t worry about the Doctor or the Magister, who’s still reserved after stepping from the Doctor’s TARDIS eighteen months ago for the first time since his robotification many years earlier. She worries about her relatives.</p><p>The Magister, the Doctor’s spouse and Alison’s partner/dom/sub/friend, squeezes her hand: a pulse of reassurance. “But those closest to us often have the most power over our hearts,” he says to Alison’s dad. “My Dom — Alison — has reason for her compunctions.” He, who calls Alison Domina in respectful adoration, stumbles on her given name.</p><p>Alison clasps his hand back. “Exactly. Florrie’s always glaring at me.” </p><p>In the passenger seat, Alison’s mum instructs the Doctor: “And please remember your pseudonym.”</p><p>“I won’t forget!” the Doctor protests.</p><p>“You confused yourself with your opera’s protagonist yesterday,” notes the Magister.</p><p>“I was very inspired.”</p><p>Alison facepalms. This will be so much fun.</p><p>***</p><p>The party subdivides by age across the concrete courtyard. Families with squealing kids surround the rusty swingset. Those Alison’s age mob the foamy Tescos sheet cake. The ones Alison’s parents’ age grill and discuss exasperating adult children. The oldest share battery-powered fans. Under a streamer-decked periwinkle tarpaulin, Florrie summons subjects for scrutiny. The courtyard, enclosed by Sheffield council flats, reverberates noisily. The sweet smell of barbecue permeates everywhere.</p><p>Alison, on a splintery bench, wishes she’d brought a book. The Time Dorks, giving her privacy with her cousin Zetta, perform by the swings. The Doctor bursts a cantaloupe with the piercing power of their magic voice. The Magister, unflinching, appears to have turned off his hearing. </p><p>Zetta returns from Florrie’s tent. “You survived!” Alison yells.</p><p>“Yeah. She was just blunt.” Zetta mimics Florrie: “Why the fade? You look like a boy. So I told her about being genderfluid. She finds out everything sooner or later anyways. Anyway, she said it suits me.” </p><p>“She said that?” Could Florrie really be that cool? Alison doubts it. “Tell your mum. Make her head explode!” Zetta’s mum Edina, Alison’s mum’s older sister, is even more tightly wound than Alison’s. </p><p>Zetta sees Alison’s parents approaching. “I’m off. If they ask, tell them I just swear onstage.” She’s sick of her improv poetry being misinterpreted by scandalized elders. She exits.</p><p>“Sorry we couldn’t get away!” Alison’s mum calls to Alison.</p><p>“Everyone wanted to hear about you,” says her dad. “I told them how happy you were.” Is he pleased?!</p><p>Alison changes the subject. “I saw Aunt Edina haranguing you.”</p><p>“About Shelle’s awards and how you need a degree.” Alison’s mum sighs.</p><p>Alison and parents drink sweaty limeades from the Styrofoam coolers. Alison says that she has avoided confrontations, though some dumbass did think that she and the Magister were together. The Magister stated that he was neither a man, nor erotically involved with Alison; therefore further inaccurate speculation should cease. It did. Hah!</p><p>“Well, if anyone gives you trouble, you’re the one who saved us from the Shalka, so they can just shut their mouths.” Alison’s mum folds her arms. Is she proud of Alison? She can’t be.</p><p>Across the courtyard, melon detonation yields to beat-boxing. White guys, the teenagers agree, can’t dance. And yet the Doctor, who has almost no melanin, flails to the rhythm. The Magister smiles with proprietary pride.</p><p>“Florrie’s asking for you, Ali,” her dad reports. </p><p>The time has come to pay tribute. Alison’s heart palpitates. Why is she more scared of Florrie than the Shalka?</p><p>***</p><p>Seated in her power wheelchair, Florinda Samanthine Eustis gazes down her beaky nose. She worked in the steel mills during World War II before an accident cost her her left foot and her job. “Sooooo...you’re Dracula?” she asks the Doctor.</p><p>“I’m the Doctor.” They do jazz hands. “Happy ninetieth! The first nine decades are always the hardest. After that is when the fun begins!”</p><p>Florrie evaluates the Magister. “The mad scientist dictator from the pictures. I know your type.” She and Alison’s mum love 1950s alien movies.</p><p>“That’s my Master!” the Doctor sings. Alison, between Time Dorks, cringes at her robot’s actual name.</p><p>“I don’t care what you call yourself in private, young man,” Florrie addresses the Magister, “but that ain’t a name for public conversation.”</p><p>“Maximilian Thascalos, then.” </p><p>“Young!” the Doctor snickers. “Man!” The Magister coughs, amused.</p><p>“What do you want with Alison?”</p><p>“She saved the planet with us!” says the Doctor with more jazz hands.</p><p>“Saving the planet… This about the spaceships your mum mentioned?” Wow, Florrie really does figure out everything eventually.</p><p>Alison gasps. “What has she been saying?”</p><p>“She says you’re chasing away aliens and making friends with a robot. Really living up to her space-age dreams now, huh?” Florrie winks. “I’ve been watching you, you know. You’re like me: too smart, too stubborn, too queer.”</p><p>“Queer?” Alison feels floaty, trembly — startled? [Happy?!]</p><p>“Liking the guys and the girls. Jumping right in and defending your home. Making new friends, even if they’re queer too.” Florrie nods at the Time Dorks. </p><p>“Queer?” Alison echoes. Maybe Florrie is that cool after all.</p><p>The Magister takes Alison’s hand. “She knows what you have accomplished, and she is fond of you, Domina carissima.” </p><p>Peace settles upon Alison, caught in her robot’s strong, still grasp. She realizes that Florrie’s sharpness, like the Magister’s, contains respect and goodwill. Florrie sees no ghostly disappointments or might-have-beens in Alison. To her, as to Alison’s parents and Time Dorks, Alison is a time-traveling master of her fate and savior of the world.</p><p>She, Alison Clarabella Cheney, is amazing to her family, both biological and chosen. Her entire body beams with warmth. Yeah...I am the captain of my soul, she thinks.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>